Thursday, August 07, 2008

Mom is Here...I repeat...Mom is here

My parents landed in Milwaukee on Tuesday afternoon. As a nice gesture my siblings and I decided to stock their room with a few items. It was also to keep Mom from hitting the local Pick & Save five minutes after she landed. They've made it a habit at staying at an Extended Stay place in the area. Offers have been made for them to stay here but we're answered with "Your father and I just like to relax at night". This is usually met with a gawk from Dad, because I think he'd rather stay with one of his kids and their families. He just goes with Loria's flow.

We fixed them up with numerous items...water, soda, snacks, lunch meat, bread and some condiments that aren't available for quick fingered Loria to steal from the hotel. She got pretty excited about the cushy toilet paper and then showed me that she managed to get two rolls from home (to tide her over until she got to the store) into her suitcase, along with bathroom cleaner and coffee. What can I say? Gotta love her for her crazy ideas.

I phoned them this morning to see what their plans were for the day and was told they were going apartment hunting. Huh! Did she finally cave? Did she finally realize that their getting up there and might want to move closer to their family? Did Ben Sr. finally get through to her? If this is the case and they do decide to move back, even for part of the year, I will be a little more at ease. I would love for them to live their later lives doing what they want but Ben Sr. has had some health issues and as strong as Loria is, I'm not quite sure she can handle anything to stressful on her own. I'd love to make the move and be closer to them to be able to help out, but that would mean leaving my own kids & grand kids. I'm just a little to attached to them and I remember the feelings we all had when Ben & Loria hit the road in 93. As they pulled away in their fully stuffed Saturn I had this unexplainable feeling. Now that there's talk of them maybe returning I'm starting to feel a little hopeful.

As for now the alert is out. Loria will hit Pick & Save at least every other day, she will hit Kohl's a few times, Sara Lee is on the list and of course Kopp's at least 3-4 times( I sent her gift cards) . Funny how we take those places for granted, but she gets a big thrill out of them.